Apotheosis of the Immortal (8 page)

Chapter 14

It was night
by the time the city came into view, illuminated by the faint glow of a crescent moon. Hassan said the moonlight made them vulnerable and insisted they leave their horses behind. Stealth and speed would be their primary weapons as they crawled toward the city wall.

Elijah watched from a distance while Hassan dispatched a lookout by sneaking up behind him and slicing his throat. He then motioned for Elijah to move forward. Elijah could hear roars coming from within the city walls.

“I can’t get to these lookouts without the sentries on the wall seeing me. I need you to take care of them. Leave your sword; just a dagger to the throat and then let them fall outside the wall.”

Elijah thought it sounded easy enough, but his mind was elsewhere.

“Hassan.” Elijah grabbed him hard by the arm to keep him from disappearing into the night. “Do you hear the cheers?” Elijah looked at Hassan and then at the wall.

“Of course I do. They are preparing for battle, to fight and die if necessary for their God.” Hassan jerked his arm free as Elijah’s grip loosened. “Now get to the wall!” Hassan pointed with his dagger.

“Those are the same sounds that were rising from Cordoba as I fled the city. A different language of course, but it sounded the same.” Elijah looked back towards Hassan.

“What is your point, Elijah?” Hassan was growing anxious; they didn’t have much time.

“How much land and wealth do these two gods need? What makes it worth sacrificing thousands of innocent lives, as well as the lives of the dedicated soldiers, who risk everything when they fight and bleed on the battlefield?” Elijah narrowed his eyes but continued to hold Hassan’s gaze.

“Elijah, you are a naïve boy; you know nothing of this. To die in the service of God is the greatest honor one can hope to achieve.” Hassan glanced down. “Now, we have to move!”

“When your side wins, will your God work the land, the limitless acres soaked with the blood of innocent farmers? Will he tend to the livestock he stole from the starving children of innocent herdsmen? Christian, Muslim, there is no difference,” Elijah growled, willing the Assassin to listen. “These wars are fought to steal from those who are too weak to guard their own goods, and to kill anyone and everyone who stands in the way of what their leaders want—leaders who are not gods nor devils, but mere men, men who want far more than they need and infinitely more than they deserve.”

Elijah looked back towards the city wall. “I am going to help you with this assignment,” he continued, “but I want something to be clear. I am neither on your side nor on the side of your God. If the gods truly exist, they only bless you in the morning so they can curse you at night. I am not a good man, but I am obviously more blessed than you are when it comes to imagination, because I can think of many things worth far more than dying for a selfish god.” Elijah quietly pulled the dagger from his belt and disappeared into the darkness.

He raced towards the wall and scaled it effortlessly. He approached the first sentry with blinding speed and accidentally sliced off the man’s head. Luckily, he caught it just before it fell into the city. He was more careful as he sliced the throats of his next two victims, dropped them off the far side of the wall, and then jumped back down.

Scanning the scene, he saw Hassan had already taken care of all but one lookout. Excitement burst into his chest. Every life he took was a poor substitute for the lives he wanted to take; still, it helped to relieve some of his frustration.

Elijah looked at the dagger in his hand for a moment before sliding it into his belt. Rushing forward, he wrapped his arms around the last lookout’s chest and pulled his chin backwards until his head was separated from his body. Tension and frustration once again escaped Elijah’s body. His burning passion dulled as a slight calm flowed over him. He needed this.

Elijah saw shock and disdain on Hassan’s face as he approached.

“What now?” Elijah rolled his head back to further relieve the tension already building again in his shoulders.

“There, in that tower.” Hassan pointed to the only tower in the city. “Alfonzo is there, and we are charged with delivering a message to him.”

Elijah watched Hassan climb the city wall; he did it with ease, obviously agile and strong. Elijah took off after him and then waited for him at the top. Elijah offered a hand to Hassan as he neared the top, but the proud Assassin swatted it away.

“Stay here; this part only needs one man.” Hassan climbed to his feet and looked towards the tower. It stood more than six feet from the wall. He took a running start and leapt across the gap.

Elijah watched. He was stunned to see the Assassin stick to the tower wall like a lizard and begin climbing towards the window near the top. Ignoring Hassan’s instructions, Elijah followed, and the pair slowly made their way up. Hassan quickly pulled himself through the window and, after looking around, shrugged and motioned for Elijah to follow.

Elijah’s heart was racing. He was eager to kill again as he jumped through the window and saw a lone figure lying in a large bed. Hassan unfolded a letter and laid it on the ground next to the bed. He pulled his dagger and flung it down; the blade tore through the paper and stuck into the wooden floorboard.

“Let’s go.” Hassan pointed to the window.

“What? We’re not going to kill him?” Elijah was disappointed; tension knotted his body. His jaw clenched and he began to grind his teeth, making the muscles in his face tight and rigid.

“No! I told you, we came here to send a message. Now, let’s go.” Hassan spoke sternly. Elijah’s frustration continued to grow until he reached down and grabbed the dagger and the note. The note instructed Alfonzo to stop his campaign or he would be killed. Elijah held the dagger over Alfonzo’s chest for a moment and looked back at Hassan.

“No.” Hassan mouthed, shaking his head as he motioned for Elijah to follow him out. Swinging the dagger with his right hand, Elijah slapped the note against the bed’s headboard and jammed the knife through to hold it in place. Alfonzo snapped up in his bed, startled.

“Who’s there?” he shouted before calling for his guards.

Elijah rushed towards the window. He grabbed Hassan and leapt to the wall, glancing once over his shoulder before he fell from the wall and hit the ground running. They were out of sight in no time and Elijah stopped.

Hassan was shaken up and angry. “What was that about? I told you to stay on the wall. You nearly sabotaged my mission with your lust for bloodshed,” he shouted.

“Your mission is over; now train me.” Elijah pinned him with a stare.

Hassan huffed and turned his back, running his fingers through his hair and taking a deep breath. “I can’t train you here; we must go back to Alamut. It is a long journey.” His eyes had softened, and Elijah could see he was getting tired. “We have to cross the sea.”

Chapter 15

Elijah had never
been on a ship before, and the trip was miserable. It seemed to last forever, especially since he was nauseous most of the time. After finally arriving on shore near Antioch, it didn’t take them long to steal a pair of horses and make their way to Qadmus, the nearest Assassin stronghold. They were welcomed there, given food and a bath.

The next morning they left for Alamut. After another arduous journey, they finally arrived at a fortress near the Caspian Sea. The fortress was located at the end of an almost vertical path near the top of a two thousand meter-high ridge in the Elburz Mountains. This fortress, where Elijah would learn the art of weaponry, seemed nearly impenetrable.

Hassan began his lessons right away. The first weapon Elijah learned was the short sword. Elijah proved to be a keen student of the martial arts and Hassan agreed to further his training. He soon learned the dagger and then the sword and dagger in combination. Along with poison, paranoia, fear, and the art of a well-polished tongue, these were the most common weapons of the Assassins of Alamut; every soldier was trained extensively in these arts.

Elijah trained night and day, never sleeping. When Hassan was away on a mission, Elijah worked tirelessly to master the most recent techniques that had been shown to him. Soon he began to study on his own and even develop his own style of fighting.

He was given his own bedchamber, which he rarely entered; the sands of the training grounds had become his new home. When he wasn’t there, he was poring over the wealth of knowledge in Alamut’s famous library. Quickly surpassing his mother’s sporadic lessons in reading and writing, he practically inhaled the library’s vast array of contents, easily absorbing new languages and arcane subjects. He read all the books on warfare, fighting techniques, and weapons training first. From there, he moved to history, religion, alchemy, astronomy and the seven liberal arts.

Once he had bled those sections dry he moved on to the mechanical arts. He studied agriculture, hunting, navigation, weaving, and medicine before he found a section on blacksmithing. He studied metalworking extensively, determined to make his own weapons. Then he practiced constantly, until satisfied he was proficient enough to cast the weapon he believed shamed all others, a weapon that seemed to have been forgotten by time.

Many of the old books he had read cataloged weapons that had been used in different ages and cultures around the world. There was one that seemed to leap from the page every time to catch his eye. It was a thick, curved iron sword with a single edge; it could be used to thrust like a straight sword, but it could also be used to hack with nearly the strength of an axe. It was called a
kopis
.

The
kopis
was a one-handed sword used by the ancient Spartans, and a truly vicious-looking weapon. “…the quintessential adornment of a truly bad man.” The book read like King Leonidas was the devil himself, commanding a legion of three hundred demonic minions. The book was written by a Roman, so the hateful aspect vexed Elijah. Throughout his studies of history, the Greeks seemed to have been the only peoples who ever gained and held Rome’s respect.

Still, he knew every sword was only a fashioned hunk of metal; the truth of its virtue and vice lay only in the strength of its molding and composition, the character of the forge, the sharpness of the edge—and the distribution of the weight, which was key to the weapon’s balance and to the fierceness of its blow. The only other virtue held by any weapon was merely an expression of the man wielding it.

The
kopis
was forged out of one solid piece of metal from hilt to tip, which made it very sturdy. Elijah fashioned two of them, identical in every respect, except for size. The blade of the larger
kopis
was nearly seventy centimeters long, much longer than the classical weapon. The shorter blade was only thirty centimeters.

Elijah was satisfied with his creations; the two weapons were nearly perfectly proportionate in size and weight. The smaller
kopis
, or “dagger” as Elijah called it, hung beneath his right arm from a leather strap of his design and making. The larger one hung from his right hip in a scabbard he had fashioned to hold it in perfect position to strike quickly.

Chapter 16

Thoughts of the
past kept Elijah focused. He needed to be the ultimate weapon when he finally had another chance to face his father, and a first chance to face his brother, on the field of battle. As Elijah grew stronger and more fierce, the Assassins decided to make use of his deadly potential.

He was sent on many missions throughout Asia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. He always searched out the local temples, hoping to find his brother, but he was never successful. As his frustration grew, he relished bloodshed more and more. Soon he grew tired of killing only targets; single kills no longer soothed the frustration, anger, and guilt that were festering inside him.

He became reckless, killing when he didn’t need to kill. He earned a bad reputation at the fortress and was shunned by nearly everyone except Hassan, who had always tried to fashion Elijah’s character along with his skill. Now their training sessions were often interrupted by Hassan’s long lectures.

Elijah was growing tired of his constant berating about self-control, and about loyalty to the code of discipline and leadership he claimed had held the Assassin order together for so long.